The Kept

The Forest

Hands groped at Nerys from all directions. Soft, moist fingers wrapped themselves around her arms and ankles, clamped tightly over her mouth, and closed around her throat. They stroked her hair and caressed her face while she lay immobilized, completely at their mercy.
"Poor princess," tiny voices hissed. "Give your suffering heart to us, dear one and you will not weep for long. We are waiting for you."

Nerys bolted up from her nightmare shaking violently and covered in the evening dew or terrified sweat, she wasn't sure which. The undiluted darkness indicated that dawn was still hours away. Dadien mumbled in his sleep on the opposite side of the tree and the two brutes, Micah and Enoch, snored loudly on the far edge of their camp. She looked about for Aimery and found his eyes reflecting the soft flicker of the dying flames opposite her.

"Bad dream, princess?" he asked.

He looked just as he had at the masquerade. The dark bruising framed his eyes like a mask, and his tousled locks fell over his forehead glowing white curls. Even if she had remembered him at the time, there was no way she could have recognized him as the same young man from the Esidiem.

"Why did you come tto us at the Festival feast?"

"I had wanted to warn you to be more careful for a while. I don't think Trygve was the only one with eyes on you. But, you were always with Kalea and Aali and you three were so close, I had no idea how to approach you until you gave me a good reason during the Festival."

Aimery added the last scraps of wood to the fire and watched the flames to make their creeping acceptance of the fresh offering before speaking again.

"Killing Kalea must have been the worst moment of Aali's life, but it was the kindest way to end her suffering— and yours."

Nerys had never before thought of Aali's actions as mercy. She did not want to recall the look on his face as Kalea fell, but his sorrow at that moment had been so clear that it was seared into her every memory of him.

"The sad part is that I would have gladly taken his place, even then, just to have meant something to you." Aimery sighed. "It's pathetic, isn't it?"

Nerys shook her head. Images flashed through her mind of the years spent with Aali and Kalea- laughing, fighting, making plans for a future they would never see.

They became muddled and reimagined with Aimery watching from the shadows— alone and trying to atone for the sin of being born to the wrong father— just beyond her notice.

"Aimery, I can't go to Tiarmn," Nerys said.

"But your father is waiting there."

"He is not. My aunt and her guard raised me as their own because the princess of Tiarmn could not return to her kingdom and husband with the king of Cerebes's child."

"What?" Aimery glanced at the two mercenaries who were still asleep, then crept closer to Nerys.

"I want to believe that he has escaped, but I know without a doubt that man I knew as my father would die before he'd abandon Lirienne."

"If this is another trick..."

"It's not. The only person with reason to bring me to Tiarmn is my half-brother, Prince Ardin. He is afraid that I will come after his throne, and I think he has used you to come for me first."

Aimery looked doubtful.

"I am trying to prevent a war," Nerys said, suddenly inspired.

"There is no reason for war. That's the whole purpose of the Esidiem."

"My marriage is meant to unite Cerebes and Ithaam. It's one thing if I choose one brother over another- both kingdoms will still get something that they want out of it- but if the crowned prince of Tiarmn murders me, no game in the arena will settle the debt."